


i try to do the best i can (i know you try to do the same)

by far2late



Series: ultimately [2]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Aftermath of Violence, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Angst, Angst and Feels, Anxiety, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fear, Fear of Discovery, Feral Ranboo (Video Blogging RPF), Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Foreshadowing, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Hybrid Ranboo (Video Blogging RPF), Injury Recovery, Light Angst, Mentioned Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), Mentioned Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Mild Hurt/Comfort, Panic Attacks, Protective Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF), Ranboo Angst (Video Blogging RPF), Ranboo-centric (Video Blogging RPF), Recovery, Sad, Sad Ranboo (Video Blogging RPF), Sad with a Happy Ending, Slightly - Freeform, Touch-Starved, Trust Issues, hybrid politics, lol only I know, scared Ranboo, touch starved ranboo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 18:23:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29970477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/far2late/pseuds/far2late
Summary: “In all honesty, Ranboo had no idea what was going to happen to him. Technoblade and Philza had both told him that they were there to help and that he wouldn't be harmed under their protection, but he was still wary about it. The last he remembered hearing, they had a problem with a shortage of Ender pearls and that was why he was so easily traded off after a year old capture with Dream. Freedom was something new, old memories of it hidden behind a hazy fog of blood and death and thousands of respawns he wasn’t equipped for.The only thing that only slightly made it better for him was the knowledge that both Technoblade and Philza were hybrids alike to him. Maybe not fully mob with the signature of a Player mistakenly traced onto them, but hybrid enough to have the same sort of experiences of succumbing to their most basic instincts when it came to overwhelming emotions that they couldn’t quite handle.”orranboo lets a few of his walls down after a night terror and unlikely help.
Relationships: Ranboo & Technoblade
Series: ultimately [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2203032
Comments: 21
Kudos: 761
Collections: Completed stories I've read





	i try to do the best i can (i know you try to do the same)

Ranboo’s hands shook violently as he wrapped them around his ankles, tail lashing around them protectively as he ducked further under the table he had found. 

The aftershocks of a nightmare still buzzed under his skin at a near-constant rate, making him feel more anxious and frightened out of the faded dream he had. Ranboo tucked his chin into his knees, hiding his face from view as he dug his teeth into cloth in an attempt to stay quiet. 

It had been at least three or four days since he had woken up outside of a cage and had a meltdown instead of taking it well at all. The two people who had been by his side when he awoke- Technoblade and Philza, had introduced themselves as- had tried to calm him down as Ranboo lashed out on them with clawed hands. He was surprised when they didn't immediately punish him the way Dream would have the moment he so much as whimpered at the sight of a Netherite sword coming to slide between his ribs neatly. 

Ranboo shuddered at the reminder of the man, not wanting to think of the white mask that held a black painted smile on it. It was the same face that haunted his nightmares now, ironically enough. Something about blood and swords and Ender pearls and calls from the void jeering at him for being weak and getting captured in the first place. 

He had been jolted from his restless sleep by a hand on his shoulder, twisting to grab at it and bite at the hand that tried to touch him before realizing what he had done and panicking. Ranboo didn’t even get a chance to see what the person- he was pretty sure it was Technoblade- had thought of him grabbing him and biting at him, only hearing a yelp before he teleported out of the room and found himself to the nearest hiding place. 

In all honesty, Ranboo had no idea what was going to happen to him. Technoblade and Philza had both told him that they were there to help and that he wouldn't be harmed under their protection, but he was still wary about it. The last he remembered hearing, they had a problem with a shortage of Ender pearls and that was why he was so easily traded off after a year old capture with Dream. Freedom was something new, old memories of it hidden behind a hazy fog of blood and death and thousands of respawns he wasn’t equipped for. 

The only thing that only slightly made it better for him was the knowledge that both Technoblade and Philza were hybrids alike to him. Maybe not fully mob with the signature of a Player mistakenly traced onto them, but hybrid enough to have the same sort of experiences of succumbing to their most basic instincts when it came to overwhelming emotions that they couldn’t quite handle. 

At the same time, Technoblade was terrifying. He was silent and imposing and large and he had almost always worn armour when Ranboo saw him. It was as though he was always ready for a fight and always prepared to pull out a weapon at any given opportunity. Ranboo found it eerily similar to Dream, who would make an effort to intimidate the hybrid. 

For all the similarities they had, though, Technoblade seemed to hate the idea of being compared to Dream at all. He regarded the man with disdain and hatred the few times that Ranboo floated in and out of consciousness while recovering from the hazy fog of respawning once more. 

Ranboo hadn’t spoken a word since he had woken up in the large, cushy room, and he wasn’t planning on it, not in a million years. The moment he would make a sound, it would be yanked at and pulled and used as a way to worm inside his mind and hurt him. Dream had already made that apparent in his own actions. Ranboo knew nothing else but to expect that this was the norm for monarchs. 

A quiet whimper nearly slipped out of Ranboo’s mouth when he heard footsteps padding from where he had assumed his room was, slapping a hand over his mouth in hopes it would hide his panic and any indication he was there. They paused at the sound and more panic enveloped Ranboo at the minute movement. 

“Kid? You there?” Technoblade’s low voice echoed through the room, Ranboo shivering at the timbre of it and how it seemed more intimidating than Dream’s gentle calls. The teen curled into himself more as the footsteps continued, eyes flitting around under the table as he watched a shadow pass over the cloth that was draped over the table. 

“I’m not gonna hurt you, I promise. Just heard you get up and got worried,” Technoblade continued, drawing a shiver from Ranboo. The words were meant to be non-threatening, but they did nothing but invoke dread of the unknown in him. Ranboo bit into his hand with sharpened teeth, digging his other hand into the floor with claws that broke through the stone of the floor. 

Ranboo pretended he didn’t hear the man stop again, sighing quietly. He sounded almost disappointed, and the teen was ready to get up and go with him just so his punishment wouldn’t be so harsh. At the same time, he thought he would be much more likely to lunge at him than anything, so he didn’t risk it in the case that Technoblade killed him at the first instinctive move that Ranboo would make. 

“I’m not gonna leave anytime soon,” Technoblade clarified as his voice came from the other side of the room, far from Ranboo. The clear distance between the two made him relax a bit. “Just letting you know. I’ll be reading over here if you need me. There’s a fireplace and I’m sure that in a couple of hours Phil will be up. He makes good hot chocolate if you like that kind of stuff.” 

Ranboo found himself taken aback by the short spiel. If anything, he was expecting a threat of harm and torture should he refuse to come out a third time. He wasn’t expecting to be given an open pass and an invitation to have hot chocolate, whatever that was. It made him want to be suspicious, but at the same time, his instincts screamed at him to curl up by the man and rest at the fireplace he brought up. 

Almost indicative of his dilemma, another wave of cold air passed through the castle and left his teeth chattering under the table, a chill working its way into his sweater and sweatpants. The clothes did little to help the cold-blooded hybrid, who shook violently, shoulder seizing as he did so. Ranboo bit at his tongue, debating whether or not to head out and get to the fireplace that Technoblade had brought up. 

After another wave of cold air that dried his nose and made his eyes water, Ranboo tentatively crawled out from under the table he had escaped to. His footsteps were near-silent and he stayed close to the ground, unused to walking around and standing properly. More often than not he was on all fours in the company of Dream, usually cowering or clawing at the man on the rare occasions he was riled up enough to forgo the consequences of lashing out on the man. 

He was pretty sure he ended up with something of an unhealthy level of rage in the process, but Ranboo was willing to overlook that for the time being. 

He padded over to the other end of the room quietly, hands dragging on the floor every now and then as he pushed himself up and went to the warm orange glow of the fireplace. At the warmth that washed over him, Ranboo’s eyes dilated, pupils large and shiny as they nearly overtook his eyes. It had been a long, long time since he had felt so warm, and now that he was close enough to have that feeling again, Ranboo couldn’t focus on the man reading in an armchair right next to him. 

Technoblade didn’t seem to pay attention to him either, Ranboo taking the chance to drag a couch cushion to the stone floor in front of the fireplace, curling up into himself with his head laid on it carefully. Ranboo drew his legs in, tail whipping around his ankles as his arms wrapped around his middle. It wasn’t the most comfortable position, but it was one of the safer ones that Ranboo had adopted after spending a year where he could be tormented in his sleep. 

The teen blinked slowly, eyes still open as he stared at the flickering flames that made up the fire he was so enamoured with. Ranboo was pretty sure that Technoblade had started to stare at him, but he didn’t have the energy to try and deal with it, not when he was so warm and comfortable and happy for the first time in so long. 

Ranboo was cold-blooded, as most Endermen hybrids were, and it was hard for him to deal with the cold castles that he had been kept in for the majority of the time he could remember. As far as he knew, it was a detriment to his health to be cold when he was cold-blooded, despite what the name might have suggested. On the off-days that it would be sunny, Ranboo had to beg George or Sapnap or Bad to move his cage over to be in the sun just so he could feel warmth warm his bones once more. 

Here, however, to be given such an open-source of heat and comfort and everything that he had been deprived of for so long, Ranboo practically melted. His ears laid flat against his head, buried in his messy, greasy hair that he refused to let anyone touch. There was something close to a throaty purr in the back of his throat, rumbling deep in his chest with vibrations that made him feel more comfortable than he should have. For a mere moment, he could pretend that he wasn’t in a castle with people he barely trusted, instead back home where things were-

He didn’t really remember. That was kind of ironic, really, but he should have expected it. 

Ranboo shuffled in place as his eyes slipped close, forcing them open instead of letting himself succumb to sleep. He didn’t want to rest here, he didn’t want to set a new respawn point for them to continue the pattern of killing him for Ender pearls. Ranboo had been having such a nice three days in a lucid state, making the most of touch and smell and sight that he had missed. He sneezed quietly, burying his face in his pillow as his tail flicked in unison. 

Ranboo shuffled closer to the fire, almost impossibly close. He felt a whine build up in the back of his throat as his heavy eyelids fell shut, feeling the warmth seep away from him. It was too far, too far for Ranboo and he needed to get close to feel it and- 

He yelped, loud and clear as the tuft of his tail began to feel white-hot pain, eyes shooting open to see the limb alight with fire after flicking it too close to the reaching flame. Ranboo reached forward and bat at it with his bare hands in the hopes it would fix, not noticing Technoblade coming up to him until a hand in his peripheral reached out for him. 

The teen screeched, eyes turning to pinpricks as he clawed at it, drawing thin lines of blood from the man. Almost immediately after, his eyes returned to their normal shape, terror possessing them as he regretted ever coming down to the area in the first place. He fucked up, now he was going to get hurt and Phil was going to punish him for hurting Techno. Either that or he was going to get hunted down like a beast in the castle for fun, the way Dream did sometimes. 

He stared up at Technoblade, shoulders shaking as he took deep breaths that fell short every time he tried to inhale. The man looked at him before looking down at his hand, cursing a bit before he wiped it off on his pant leg, as though Ranboo hadn’t just tried to hurt him and succeeded. As the man turned back to him, the teen scrabbled back to press himself into the stone that was warmed from the fireplace. 

As nice as the warmth was, he didn’t want to push his luck and get too close to it only to get hurt once more. Ranboo kept his eyes locked on Technoblade as the man sighed, making his way over to stand in front of him. The teen closed his eyes, curling up away from him in anticipation before he heard the sound of breath being puffed out of Technoblade and silence after. 

When he pried one of his eyes open, he was greeted with Technoblade crouched in front of him, holding a hand out patiently. The teen didn’t know what to do with the hand, looking down at it before looking back up at Technoblade. The man didn’t do much besides trying to soften his blank expression, looking a bit constipated as he did so. The thought made Ranboo snort a bit, though he hid it under a rough cough. 

If anything, that made the man look more concerned. Ranboo curled away from the wall, sitting on his legs and using his hands to hold up his weight. Technoblade didn’t say anything, looking more as though he was waiting for the man to hybrid to come up to him first. It was something new, something that he wasn’t used to when it came to people who owned him. 

Not that he was… owned. Often, anyway. This would be his second time, and his two experiences so far were drastically different. 

“It’s okay,” Technoblade’s slow voice reassured after a long minute of silence, tone gentle and soft. After a long ten minutes of contemplation, during which Technoblade didn’t seem to falter in his patience, Ranboo hesitantly raised a slender hand to place in his calloused one, flinching at the feeling of a non-violent touch. Technoblade, slowly and carefully, wrapped his fingers around his palms carefully. Ranboo looked up at Technoblade with wide eyes, swallowing back a gasp that came out as a loud exhale. 

Technoblade paid it no mind, rubbing his thumb over the back of Ranboo’s hands slowly. The teen didn’t- Touch was something strange, and Technoblade’s was even stranger. He let himself slowly relax after his tense shoulders lowered, shuddering out a slow and fragile breath once more. Technoblade’s crimson eyes looked back up at Ranboo, half-open as the two made eye contact. 

Ranboo froze, blinking once, twice, before looking away, blinking with his whole face before pulling away from Technoblade’s hold. The man let him go away easily, not getting up from where he was crouched as Ranboo slid back under the table. Ranboo shook out his hair, curling his fingers into it as his right hand felt uncomfortably tingly from the recent gentle touch. 

He wasn’t sure where this was going, wasn’t sure what to expect from Technoblade and Philza. They were probably the strangest people he had ever met in his entire life, but it wasn’t so much of a bad strange. It was more like he hadn’t gotten used to the way that people wouldn’t want to hurt him. Of course, there was still the chance that they would hurt him, but for now, he was okay with this so far, as strange as it was. 

(Privately, Ranboo thought that he might have wanted a little faith in the people around him instead of closing himself off forever.)

**Author's Note:**

> did most of this in class lol hope u enjoyed early update <3 might update smth else depends on how im feeling 
> 
> give suggestions for new installmetns you might want to see i got few solid plans for this


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